Angels and Demons
Dan Brown
Corgi, 2001www.danbrown.com
See Dan.
See Dan Brown.
Brown, Dan, Brown!
Here follows the best exchange of correspondence that, for legal reasons, I cannot say ever took place:
Dear Critical Mick
Hey! I am a great writer, very like a combination of Nitche and Robert Jordan. My online name is Langdon R. Danbrown. A great writer friend of mine who is in the Critters online community said you critiqued his story good. So here is the first chapter of my next great novel, Deception Fortress Versus Robert. Can you edit it for me? Those jerks at the publishing company in New York said they accept ONLY stuff that has been edited.
Deception Fortress Versus Robert, Chapter 1
Robert woke up and yawned. The telephone was ringing like a bell. It was loud as thunder. What, it's 3AM in the morning! Robert Bauer gasped in his head. What is so lifethreatening that it woke me up now?
The telephone! He realized. That was what had woken him up. It was a neoclassical model phone based on [EDITOR: insert text lifted from MS Encarta entry on neoclassical art]. Unlike that famous artwork, Robert's phone contained the new Motorella X43 5GHz receiver chip. Quick as a wink, Robert answered the phone.
"Hello? This is Doctor Robert Bauer, reknowned expert in theoretical mathmatics and occult numerology! It's 3:01 in the morning!"
The line was as crackley as an old-fashioned radio that crackled with static. "Apologies, Professor Bauer. Allow me to introduce myself. I am a mysterious caller with a foreign accent. Would you like to embark on a mission that will, over the next twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes, decide the fate of all mankind!"
"You students and your prank calls!" cursed Robert. "That does it! Write me a ten-page paper on [EDITOR: enter name of old fashioned architecture style here] and have it on my desk by 9 AM!"
Robert slammed down the phone. That jiggled the sensor bit that breaks telephone connections.
The neoclassical phone rang again. Robert felt his anger burst like a dam. He picked up the phone and it stopped ringing.
"Professore Bauer, would it help convince you if I mentioned... the number TWELVE?"
"No!" Bauer felt his heart drop like a stone. "That's the square root of one hundred and fourty-four!"
144, as educated academics know, was called in old-fashioned day "a gross."
"Yes!" the strange caller said enigmatically. "Twelve has been spotted at Deception Fortress. We can get to the root of all that is gross! Before it kills someone."
Bauer felt like Pythagorous felt when he discovered the Da Vinci code. "This is a student prank! It's 3:02 AM! Goodbye!" He broke the phone connection again as previously described.
Fast as a speeding train, his computer began to blink a large warning. NEW EMAIL MESSAGE RECEIVED! Bauer's fingers were light as a feather as he quickly typed his username. Then he typed his 26 character password. When he came to his computer's desktop, he clicked the button for his email program.
"No!" he shouted.
Three new messages waited. One was from his little brother Jack, he'd read that later. One was a generous offer for 20% off bestsellers from Amazon. Bauer clicked the link and placed his order for the exciting, fast-paced novels that were listed in the top five. Happy in the knowledge that they would be dispatched by complementary two-day shipping, he closed that and opened his third message. It was a photo.
Bauer felt like his head would explode on a runaway roller coaster."No! It can't be" he yelled. The walls closed in around him and he gasped in disbelief.
I wrote back:
Get offa it! This is Angels & Demons starring a different type of professor. Fess up! You're Dan Brown!
No! Dan who? Never heard of him, though a quick trip to the award-winning danbrown.com reveals there is much to be admired about this great author.
Will you fix up DF vs. R the way the publishing people like it? I understand that it is your fond wish to have a villain named after you. That dream can become a reality!
Here's chapters 2 through 8, whererin Bauer's instict reveals to him that this is not a student prank and that he should investigate. Just change all occurances of Dr Nano to Mick Halpin.
I advised this author to put a big red scratch through the six chapters of unnecessary delay. It's obvious that the hero will investigate. More important: put two big red scratches through the chapter where Bauer's assistants, Tony 380ZX and Cloney O'Brien, pause for no good reason to listen to the mysterious ticking coming from down an unused stairwell in the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts.
"Hmm, I wonder what that is?" commented Tony.
"No time to check now!" cried Cloney. "If we don't find that time bomb in the next twenty-two hours, something really gross will happen! Quickly! Search in the exact opposite direction!"
You're a real jerk, Critical Mick. Just rubbish my hard work why don't you! Man, if I could I'd punch you hard as steel in the nose. You'd fall like a stone and hit the canvas like a ton of bricks. How many books have YOU placed on the Amazon bestseller chart? How many of your stories are being made into blockbuster movies starring Tom Hanks?
You smell worse than a vomitorium, which if you knew anything about classical civilization you'd know that it is the place where lots of dead Greek guys went to BARF.
I calls 'em like I sneeze 'em, Danbrown.
Ah gee. Sorry for going off like a powderkeg, Mick. Bad reviews depress me like a Lee Press-on Nail pressed onto a big middle finger.
I'm going to book me a carribean cruise to cheer me up, big time. I will cruise and write and sometime waltz at the Captain's Ball until I no longer see people on the sundeck reading my novels. Wish me luck!
E pluribus agricolae.
Langdon R. Danbrown.
One day I probably will read that illustrated edition of The DaVinci Code that my little sister gave me for Christmas. Didn't Philip Kerr note that thrillers are children's adventure stories for adults? The high-school freshman in each of us would get a kick out of Angels & Demons. It kept me laughing, anyway.
Besides, give the man some credit. Millions of wannabe sci-fi amateurs dream of hitting the jackpot. Dan Brown is our brother who did.
If he ever reads this review, Dan Brown's next novel will contain a villain named Critical Mick.
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